Filner halts medpot crackdown

Federal crackdown not affected by mayor's action

Goldsmith said Filner’s directive means the city won’t cooperate with state or federal prosecutors on dispensary cases as it has in the past.

“If we don’t get the evidence, we don’t file a lawsuit,” Goldsmith said Thursday. “I don’t know what the reaction will be from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said she was out of town Thursday and unavailable for comment. Chief Lansdowne had yet to receive the cease-and-desist letter from Filner and therefore couldn’t comment, a spokeswoman said.

More than 200 medical marijuana collectives have been closed down in San Diego and Imperial counties since Duffy and her colleagues announced in 2011 sweeping enforcement actions aimed at distributors in California. Some closures were attributed to settlements with the City Attorney’s Office — before and after medical marijuana activists in the city failed to qualify a regulate-and-tax initiative for the November ballot.

The legal limbo for dispensaries dates to 1996 when state voters approved an initiative to allow people with recommendations from state-licensed physicians to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. The ballot measure did not affect the federal law making marijuana illegal.